Cutting smoking from casinos could save lives

This entry was posted on August 14, 2013 by FreshAirPro.

Casinos are among the last private-run businesses that allow guests to smoke indoors. While smoking bans have been implemented around the nation in other facilities to help curb secondhand smoke, a new study might entice casinos to follow suit. Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco, recently found that casinos that banned smoking indoors saw fewer medical emergencies than their counterparts that still allow people to puff inside.

The findings, published in the journal Circulation, show that smoke-free facilities could lead to a decrease in a wide variety of heart-related issues such as stroke and heart attack. During trials, scientists reviewed information on Gilpin County, a small city about an hour outside of Denver, Colo. The area is home to more than two dozen casinos and it's reported that these facilities bring in about 40,000 people annually.

From January 2000 through December 2012, more than 16,600 ambulance calls were reported around town. However, following an indoor smoking ban at casinos put into place in 2008, ambulance calls to these facilities dropped by close to 20 percent. This shows just how serious secondhand smoke is and ways in which people can limit others' exposure.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, secondhand smoke has been found to cause an estimated 46,000 premature deaths from heart disease each year among nonsmokers. Casinos can cut back on secondhand smoke by banning smoking indoors and by installing professional-grade air purifiers like the IQAir HealthPro Plus.